Thread: Abrasive Grit Comparison Sheet

So glad it was useful!
... and I must admit that I already posted it elsewhere *shrugs* LOL

If I run into some more, i'm going to send it to you.

Smokinbird,

I hope you don't mind, but I just posted your chart over on the Knife Forums in one of my threads. Perfect timing.

Great Job!!!!

Originally Posted by jendeindustries

Smokinbird,

I hope you don't mind, but I just posted your chart over on the Knife Forums in one of my threads. Perfect timing.

Great Job!!!!

Absolutely perfect!

I intend to post it on a couple other forums as well.....I have seen lots of partial comparisons, but I have never seen any references to back them up, and I just don't trust everything I read.

Thanks for this, man. I'm curious, where did you get the Shapton info? I emailed them asking for the micron info and never got an answer.

Speaking of which, does anyone have any idea about the Naniwa micron sizes? I called them and the rep I spoke to said he didn't have any idea about the microns, and was surprisingly unhelpful--he didn't offer any ideas how to get the information at all. This is very strange in Japan. Customer service is typically amazingly helpful...what's up with these hone companies???

Originally Posted by JimR

Thanks for this, man. I'm curious, where did you get the Shapton info? I emailed them asking for the micron info and never got an answer.

Speaking of which, does anyone have any idea about the Naniwa micron sizes? I called them and the rep I spoke to said he didn't have any idea about the microns, and was surprisingly unhelpful--he didn't offer any ideas how to get the information at all. This is very strange in Japan. Customer service is typically amazingly helpful...what's up with these hone companies???

I had a friend that speaks Japanese call them at 0285-72-7755 after I had the Glass stone info from their web site.

Since this was word of mouth and not a written and published table, I would be thrilled if anyone can correct me if they lay their hands on something in writing from Shapton.

I just emailed Naniwa to see if I can get anything useful from them.....we'll see.

I suppose the back of my GlassStones counts as
`in-writing'...

1000 mesh - 14.7 micron
2000 mesh - 7.35 micron
4000 mesh - 3.68 micron
8000 mesh - 1.84 micron
16000 mesh - 0.92 micron
30000 mesh - 0.49 micron

- Scott

This is slightly tangential, but I've found since using
the Shapton stones that the 4k is too fine to do what
I would consider minor sharpening. I've had to drop
down to the 2k on new razors a lot, and the grit
comparison to the Norton 4k sheds some light on
this.

Thanks!

- Scott

Originally Posted by sebell

I suppose the back of my GlassStones counts as
`in-writing'...

1000 mesh - 14.7 micron
2000 mesh - 7.35 micron
4000 mesh - 3.68 micron
8000 mesh - 1.84 micron
16000 mesh - 0.92 micron
30000 mesh - 0.49 micron

- Scott

Pam on Knifeforums just posted something interesting...

For the glass stone series,

Divide 14,700 by the grit size and you have the particle size in microns.

Divide 14,700 by the micron and you get the grit.

Multiply the grit by micron and you get 14,700.

(some of the numbers give small errors due to rounding. For example, the 4000 grit stone should have a 3.675 micron size, but since shapton only takes things to the hundredths, they round up to 3.68.)

So, apparently shapton considers a stone that has a one micron abrasive size to be a 14,700 grit stone.

Glenn - I completely understand your skepticism, I felt the same way at first, but after working on this for quite a while and trying comparisons of things like US to European sand paper and Norton to Japanese stones, I am forced to believe it....

BUT, don't take my word for it...compare what your glass stone says or better yet, their web site
(Ceramic On Tempered Glass : Shapton® Stones, Shapton® Sharpening Systems)

to what Norton says about their stones on their site

(http://www.nortonstones.com/Media/Do...nesCatalog.pdf)


Here's the kicker, and it gets me every time....I know that the scratch pattern from my Norton 4000 grit water stone (6 micron) is bigger than the scratch pattern from a friend's 4000 grit King water stone (3 micron), because I was able to see a sizable difference with a microscope...

...BUT...

....What these manufacturers don't say anything about, which could potentially make a HUGE difference (and does), is what the particles are made of and what shape they are.....

....I have seen some of the members on here saying that they would rather use 1 micron CrOx than 0.25 micron diamond paste because supposedly the diamond paste is so much more harsh, and as far as that goes, I saw a thread from ChrisL that said he got a reasonably comfortable shave from what was supposedly 50 micron CrOx, so what the actual sharpening media is made of DOES make a difference, since even ChrisL mentioned that he wouldn't try this with 500 grit sand paper....

Please let us know what you think of your Shapton Glass 4K shave compared to your Norton 8K shave....

...my guess is that the Norton will be smoother....Why, has to do with "Why Shaptons?"......the answer as far as I have ever heard is because Shaptons are more aggressive and work much faster.....but this might have the side effect of giving you a rougher shave also.

You might also try shaving from the Shapton Glass 8K and the Norton 8K and see if you think there is a significant difference in the feel of the two shaves....

Originally Posted by Smokintbird

Absolutely perfect!

I intend to post it on a couple other forums as well.....I have seen lots of partial comparisons, but I have never seen any references to back them up, and I just don't trust everything I read.

Hi, it appears that Olivia took the jis tables from one of my pages... I can't give you a reference for the data to proove its accuracy, but I spent about a year with a kanji dictionary and yahoo.co.jp searching before I found a Japanese industrial abrasives manufacturer that had a detailed JIS chart showing both the old and new JIS down to this level of detail in a gif image that copied into text format:
http://members.cox.net/yuzuha/jisgrits.html
(I did not list the old JIS standards to that detail since the sedimentation tube method is obsolete but I did list a partial comparison of the old and new JIS on my Shapton grit page http://members.cox.net/yuzuha/jisgrit1.html The yellow numbers on here are purely theoretical and I calculated them for comparing Shapton's grading system to other stones and micron graded powders etc. )

Alas, I can no longer point you to the original site where I found the JIS information because the PC I had all that on died several years ago.... I also no longer have the complete details of the old JIS standard (you can download the standards from the JIS organization in English or Japanese but they charge a considerable fee to do so).

One really interesting thing to note on the detailed table though is the maximum size. 8000 grit can have a few percent 6 micron particles, which can put some dandy scratches in mean 1.2 micron finish. Also the 3% tails are interesting... The 3% below .6 microns is not very important but again it allows 3% to be between 3.5 and 6 microns and still be listed as 8000 grit!

BTW, I discovered that some of you also hang out on knife forums but some of you may not.... you can still find some useful stuff in the useful links sub forum of the kitchen knife forum over there... http://www.knifeforums.com/forums/showtopic.php?tid/759892/
http://www.knifeforums.com/forums/showtopic.php?tid/759541/
for example.

Lots of sources for stones anyway Might find some razor discussion in the "kitchen" and "keeping sharp" forums too.